Now strangers are posting threats to Williams on the Internet. A new Facebook page titled "Judge Amanda Williams Must Be Stopped" includes posts calling her a monster and noting, "This woman is the reason the rest of the country thinks Georgia is such a backwater."

The "This American Life" broadcast, called "Very Tough Love," highlighted a number of cases in Williams' drug court, including that of a woman who tried to commit suicide after spending more than two months on an indefinite jail term. It also reported that Williams is "a judge many people truly fear."

The broadcast was aired just a few months after Williams handily won re-election to her sixth term in a campaign in which she was accused of blatant nepotism and giving inappropriately harsh sentences to offenders who elect not to enter her drug court.

Williams, while acknowledging she can be direct and demanding, said the broadcast unjustly threatens the integrity of her court and drug courts across Georgia.

"I've spent 121/2 years trying to give people an opportunity to get clean and sober, in spite of their addictive behaviors," she said. "You can really make a difference in people's lives. I can't tell you how devastating this has been."

Williams retained a lawyer who fired off a single-spaced, 14-page letter to "This American Life" host Ira Glass, telling him the judge disputes the central features of his broadcast. Williams is not feared for vindictiveness and excessive punishment. Instead, she is the preferred judge for enhanced chances of leniency, Macon lawyer David Oedel wrote.

"I stand ready to discuss your respective liabilities and possible strategies for settlement short of litigation," Oedel concluded. "But I must warn you that we are moving forward with legal action."

In response, Glass said he was not a "character assassin." He stood by the primary point of his broadcast - that he could find no other drug court in the country that uses Williams' harsh methods.

Over lunch last week at Hungry Hannah's, three blocks from the Glynn County courthouse and where a "Reelect Amanda Williams" bumper sticker still hangs on the wall, Williams acknowledged that it's almost unheard of for a sitting judge to file a libel suit. But she also declined to state her intentions.

Other concerns

As Williams presided over her drug court the next morning, Judicial Qualifications Commission Director Jeff Davis and investigator Richard Hyde sat in the gallery observing the proceedings.

Davis said he could neither confirm nor deny whether the agency is investigating Williams. But lawyers familiar with the probe said the JQC is investigating the judge.

A likely focus of the investigation is Williams' imposition of indefinite jail terms for drug court participants who repeatedly fail drug tests, abscond or commit other violations. Court records show Williams has signed orders in recent years that revoke a participant's probation, sending the offender back to jail "until further order of the court."

Jim Jenkins, a lawyer who represented two clients who participated in Williams' court, said drug court judges can wield almost unlimited power.

"I don't disagree with the people who tell me she means well," he said. "But I think the record in too many cases speaks for itself, that a lot of people have had their constitutional and procedural rights run roughshod over."

The scrutiny comes when state leaders are embracing drug courts. Last month, Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation creating a commission that will study expanding drug courts as alternatives to prison, and he signed the bill in a Hall County courtroom where his son, Judge Jason Deal, runs a drug court.

Williams said she decided to establish a local drug court after seeing the benefits of recovery for her husband. Her drug court is the third-oldest in Georgia and takes first-time, nonviolent drug offenders from Glynn, Camden and Wayne counties. In 12 years, about 1,300 defendants have agreed to participate and two-thirds of them have graduated or are still in the program, Williams said.

A 2006 study by the Glynn drug court says 5.5 percent of its graduates had been rearrested on felony charges within three years of leaving the program. A 2003 National Institute of Justice study of 17,000 drug court graduates nationwide showed that 25 percent of those participants had been rearrested on felony charges within two years of graduation.

Upon arrest, nonviolent drug defendants are jailed unless they can post a $15,000 bond. All such cases are assigned to Williams, and defendants who plead guilty and decide not to enter drug court must serve 10 to 12 months in a probation detention center, where inmates are put to work and are ineligible for parole. Or they can enter her drug court and be released on a personal recognizance bond.

A successful participant can graduate after spending at least two years in the program. If that happens, the defendant's felony conviction is expunged.

But those who suffer repeated relapses during the program face jail time and could have their stay in the program extended beyond two years. Some are kicked out of the program and sentenced to detention.

Those who fail a drug test the first time and who don't admit they used drugs must spend three days in jail. A second failed test brings seven days and a third means 28 days.

Other drug courts are less punitive. In Forsyth County, the first failed test means one day in jail; the second, three days; the third, seven days; and the fourth, 14 days. Those penalties double when a defendant denies using drugs.

Williams defends her use of lengthier jail time, such as 28 days for the third failed drug test.

"It takes 21 days to break the habit and seven days to reflect on it," she said. "I didn't just decide I was going to be mean to these people. It's all treatment-motivated."

As for indefinite incarceration, Williams said she signs such orders for those who fail to appear in court so she can decide what to do once they're arrested. She also does it for repeat offenders on a waiting list for residential treatment.

"These people aren't sitting in jail forever and ever and ever and ever," she said. "I'm fair. I'm consistent. I do care."

Law runs in the family

Williams' drug court Wednesday was all business. Participants were not allowed to put their hands in their pockets when standing before the judge. Anyone who was disruptive was directed to apologize to the bailiffs.

Also appearing before Williams was lawyer Jason Clark, representing a drug court client. Clark, who once interned for Williams as a law clerk, is a law partner with Williams' son.

In Glynn legal circles, the Williams family footprint is hard to miss.

Not only is Williams' son an attorney, so is her husband. Her daughter serves as a guardian ad litem representing children in domestic cases. And Williams' daughter-in-law, who once practiced law in the circuit, is a law clerk for one of her mother-in-law's colleagues on the bench.

The Williams family's long legal reach has drawn criticism from lawyers.

Williams has presided over domestic cases in which she appointed her daughter as guardian representing children's best interests. In 2009, her daughter-in-law obtained Williams' signature on a temporary restraining order to stop a foreclosure.

Williams said complaints about these situations are red herrings created by political opponents. Voters, she said, overwhelmingly rejected the charges.

Williams said she assigned her daughter as guardian only in cases in which both parties insisted on her involvement. She said she signed the order for her daughter-in-law a day before the scheduled foreclosure because no other judge was available and only after she informed both parties in the case about the family ties.

Lawyer opposition

Last fall, St. Simons Island attorney Doug Alexander wrote to local bar members during Williams' campaign, saying the chief judge was unfit to stay on the bench. He cited her cases with her relatives and accused her of berating parties who appear before her.

Alexander said he contributed to Williams' first run for office and campaigned for her. "But I'm at a loss today to explain her behavior," he said.

In the 2010 election, Alexander supported Williams' opponent, lawyer and law professor Mary Helen Moses, and the timing of his letter coincided with the campaign.

As for the drug court, Alexander said, "There are clearly people out there who were helped and God bless them. There are also some folks who have been grossly mistreated in that program."

Ayla Wilson said it saved her life.

A high school dropout and heroin addict at age 19, Wilson said she was caught driving the wrong way down a one-way street on Mother's Day weekend in 2007. Police found drugs, syringes and a spoon in her car.

Even though inmates at the jail warned her about Williams' drug court before she bonded out, Wilson entered the program.

"When I first appeared before her, it was like, 'Oh, my, God,'" Wilson said. She remembers Williams, her voice raised, telling her, "You are going to die!"

Wilson said she defied the program and its counselors from the outset. She said she received the standard penalties for her repeated positive drug tests: three days in jail for the first, seven for the second and 28 for the third.

After the third positive, in March 2008, Wilson said she has stayed drug free. When she graduated from drug court in May 2009, her felony conviction was expunged.

For every person thats has a positive story about the Glynn/Camden drug court there are about 100 that didn't. Looks like the judge has this newspaper in her hip pocket. I challenge the investigative reporter for this paper to seek the truth and not write a one sided story based on an interview with the judge. This judge clearly does not mean well, and its way beyond just drug court. Look at the judges' record in both family and criminal courts. More of the same.

Fact is the judge is not clean and sober herself. She will deny having any problem with drinking. Yet according to law enforcement it seems she has had several problems driving home after drinking binges. In case the judge doesn't know drinking and driving is against the law. But the law is rarely followed by this judge.

as long as there are "customers" for illegal drugs, there will be illegal drugs. and as long as there are drugs that are illegal, and little to no punishment for their use, there will be customers for those drugs. those that think they are part of the "in" crowd, call that experimentation. i call it breaking the law. if the law is archaic or no longer enforced, remove the law. we have too many laws on the book that are no longer enforced. our scumbag politicians propose new laws continually to handle problems that already have laws on the books for that problem. they're just too lazy to either look 'em up or insist on enforcement. it's easier and more politically popular to pass a new law.
the stricter the enforcement for the first time offenders (of any law) the less likely the repetition. if you receive a "stern lecture" the first 9-10 times of a crime, what makes you thik the next time is going to be different? if you think things like that don't happen, it just shows how ignorant you are of our modern socity.